The present invention relates to electronic price label (EPL) systems, and more specifically to a system and method of managing displayed message priorities in an EPL system.
Point-of-sale (POS) transaction processing systems typically include a price look-up (PLU) file which contains item identification information and item price information.
EPL systems typically include a plurality of EPLs for merchandise items in a transaction establishment. EPLs typically display the price of corresponding merchandise items on store shelves and are typically attached to a rail along the leading edge of the shelves. A transaction establishment may contain thousands of EPLs to display the prices of the merchandise items. The EPLs are coupled to a central server from where information about the EPLs is typically maintained in an EPL data file. Price information displayed by the EPLs is obtained from the PLU data file and stored within an EPL price change record.
Retailers wish to display ever increasing amounts of information besides price information. Current EPLs include a limited amount of memory, which is primarily used to store price information. Memory capacity in currently available EPLs can be as low as thirty-two bits, which is typically spread across four eight-bit data registers. One data register must be reserved for price information. Thus, only three data registers remain for displaying promotional information. Even if new EPLs with more data registers become available, it would be too expensive to replace ever the old EPLs. Thus, management of combinations of old and new EPLs complicates the problem.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide a system and method of managing displayed message priorities in an EPL system which is capable of using limited amounts of EPL memory to effectively display promotional information. It would also be desirable to provide a method of managing EPLs of various memory capacities.